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Here is a video of Jesse Jackson Jr. blaming Apple and their product the iPad for the rise in unemployment.

Dear Customer:

In the last monthly cycle, your Internet account used 175.19 GB. That’s well above the typical monthly usage of up to 43.0 GB.

This situation could mean several things. For instance: a virus or “spyware” application might have infected your computer and started generating high levels of Internet traffic, or someone else might be using your Internet connection without your knowledge. To help guard against those issues, please consider the following steps.

• If you have a wireless router, you may have unauthorized users logging onto your account. Ensure that your router is encrypted or password-protected by visiting the Web site of your router’s manufacturer.
• Viruses and spyware applications can, without your knowledge, generate excessive Internet traffic. Install and regularly update your computer’s security software to minimize the risk of your Internet connection being used by an outside party for unauthorized purposes. Suddenlink offers a free security package for qualifying customers. To learn more, visit: http://www.suddenlink.com/netsafety/mcafee.html.
• Install software to limit or eliminate the volume of spam you receive.
• Check with other members of your household regarding their Internet activities. For instance, someone in your home might leave a streaming music player running while they’re away doing other things. During that time, your account is using bandwidth without anyone benefiting from it.
• If you’ve shared your Suddenlink Internet user ID and password with someone you suspect is causing you to exceed the typical usage range, consider changing your password.
• Some popular, peer-to-peer file-sharing programs (e.g., Bit Torrent, Shareaza, etc.) will upload shared files, by default, to others as fast as your connection allows. This activity is often invisible to you, but it can result in significant usage. Check your file-sharing program preferences to make sure the upstream Internet is limited accordingly.
• Make sure, if you use a news reader (e.g., Usenet), that it is not set to automatically download message bodies for groups to which you subscribe. Otherwise, you may download a significant volume of material that is of no interest to you.

If you wish to monitor your usage, we have set up a convenient way for you to do so. If you haven’t already done so, register your account at www.suddenlink.net; when finished, click the link for “My Internet Usage Summary.” (If you’re already registered at suddenlink.net, log on, go to “My Account,” and then click the link for “My Internet Usage Summary.”) Once there, you’ll be able to see how many GB you’ve used at any point in a given monthly cycle – and compare that usage to the typical usage for your package.

More information is available at: http://www.suddenlink.com/usage/faq/.

Thank you for taking time to review this letter and for being our customer.

Suddenlink Management

43GB? Really? I don’t even think my mother can stay under a 43GB cap, and she isn’t even an intensive user. Comcast has a 250GB cap (which I only went over in my first month because I was mad with the power of high speed internet), and I think this is reasonable. So, I checked out Suddenlink’s FAQ about usage:

Much like electric usage is measured in kilowatts, and water usage is measured in gallons, Internet usage is measured in gigabytes (GB). For reference, if someone used 25 GB, she’d be able to send or receive more than 1.5 million emails, or download more than 6,500 songs, or watch more than 150 hours of YouTube videos.

Wow, it’s like 2001 has come back for a visit and no one told me! Who worries about the amount of emails they receive and send? But on the offchance that I was being unreasonable, I checked out how some average things we all do stack up against the cap:

• Xbox Game DLC come in around 1.4 GB (You better not like expansions)
• Xbox Games on demand come in around 7 GB (6 games a month, no one does this)
• Xbox Game add on come in around 50MB
• Watching a Ustream stream is 600 Kbps (No Sheen’s Korner for you!)
• Watching a Justin.tv stream is 1 Mbps
• Netflix comes in around 1.8 GB per SD and around 3.2 GB per HD movie
• Video Podcast mostly come in around 138 MB
• Audio Podcast mostly come in at 5-20MB

To be fair, this isn’t the official cap, they’re just exploring cap sizes. In my opinion, anything under 200GB is useless (hell, even 150gb would be better than this). Is anyone else having an issue with Suddenlink about this?

What is Cloud Computing?

The popularity of “the cloud” is rising; cloud based computing allow you to access your data on your own terms. While many people will think that cloud computing is something that only large corporations are using, it’s fast becoming part of every day life for even the end user.

You are probably in the cloud, and don’t even know it! If you use sites like Netflix, Youtube, and Pandora, you’re in the cloud. Cloud sites provide a front end that lets you access your data, and streams it to you. This can be quite helpful if you’re running off a netbook, don’t have much hard drive space, or just don’t want to deal with carrying terabytes of data around with you.

Google recently released Chrome OS, and beta tested laptops running only on cloud software. The reviews were mixed at best, because many people still enjoy having their data on their own systems.

What Applications usually come with Cloud Solutions?

Most packages come with business applications like:

Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook and some open source solutions like OpenOffice. You can also find other packages that will run things like PCanywhere, where you can access your computer anywhere and use your applications, regardless of what your device is.

Why not Host my own Cloud?

Running your own system can cost tons of money, and takes a lot of technical know how that many of us just don’t have time to invest in. If you have a small to medium sized business, you might not have the IT personnel to get your system off the ground; not to mention all the cash you’ll have to pay them if things go haywire at three in the morning.

Break free from your desktop or laptop and reap the rewards of the cloud!

The love for the cloud here is strong! Seriously though, the future is here, and it’s in the cloud. If you’ve seen some of those silly Bing commercials (To the cloud!) you know that it’s gaining popularity and with good reason! Cloud hosting allows us real control over our data, any time, any where! But if you’re not sure why the cloud is so great, look at the reasons below and decide for yourself!

With the Cloud, Your Data is Always Available To You

If you’re anything like me, you probably want to get at your data when you’re not at home. We all have our reasons for this, but let’s face it, until recently it just wasn’t that possible or it didn’t work very well.

With the Cloud, you’re able to use applications like GoToMyPC to access your computer from anywhere, so you can listen to your 10,000 song music collection on your iPhone or Blackberry, or even enjoy Netflix on a long commute or when you’re traveling.

Teleconference from anywhere with ease and speed

If you are a freelance worker, or work out of the office, you can use a solution like GoToMeeting to share files, your desktop, or have a real face to face meeting with your coworkers. Long gone are the depressing phone calls where you try to find a way to explain what you are trying to accomplish; just pull it up on your screen and share it! Ideas and collaboration are at the heart of cloud hosting, making for smart business and effective workdays. Why work harder, when you can work smarter?

No longer be tethered to a single operating system

If you have an Apple device and a Windows computer, you know what a tough time you can have just getting files to work right. The awesome thing about cloud hosting is that you don’t have to worry about these crazy compatibility problems. Things will fly through your systems a lot easier and a lot faster this way; if you want to access iCal on a windows phone, you’ll have no problem. Ever try to run Office on a Mac? In the cloud, you already have access to these kinds of applications virtualized, without having to deal with all the headaches that usually arise with cross platform compatibility! Share files between all your systems.

Save money by using the devices you already have

Usually when you want to run different kinds of apps, you need to buy a device that works (like mentioned above in the compatibility section). Enjoy your apps your way; run iTunes on your windows phone and listen to your music anywhere you have access! Check your email without having to remember all the imap information and passwords.

Share with who you want, How you want!

Invite your friends to your desktop or computer, and let them access your information. You can even set up access controls like read only just like you would on any other kind of server; giving you a fast and secure way to share your files with your friends.

So now you know why you should love the cloud. With applications like Netflix, Pandora, GoToMyPC, and more, you’re able to do what you want, when you want and where you want it! Get more freedom by joining up with the cloud.

With over 400 million users, half of which log in to Facebook daily, it’s important to utilize Facebook to create brand awareness. Some companies opt to create a fan group, or use their own personal profiles to communicate with their audience. This creates a problem, because while most Facebook profiles are private, fan pages are public, indexed by google and accessible to any one. Fans can share information about your products/work with one another on the wall of your page.

First, you should ask yourself why you want a Facebook fan page, what will you do with it, what you hope to achieve by creating it, and who you want to reach with it. Think about if you want a boring informational page, or if you want a way to converse with your customers and fans, creating an interactive experience that will keep users coming back again and again.

To create a Facebook fan page, you first need an account, which is free. Once logged in,
you need to go here to the page creation form.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Your first order of business is to decide what your page is going to be! Are you a local business, a brand, product, organization? Are you an artist, a band or a public figure? Make sure you select the right one! After choosing what category your page belongs in, you’ll need to come up with a clever page name. Remember, this is the first thing people will see so choose wisely and go for the best impact.

Once you’ve finished making your page, fill out the information and contact tabs. Create some informational posts about your product if you’ve redesigned your website or promotions you may have going. Remember to embed links into your posts, to generate traffic to your main site. By using Facebook fan pages, marketing can be achieved in as little as ten minutes a day, at no cost to you. When a fan joins your page, your page is instantly advertised in their feed to their friends. When you update your page, your fans receive the information automatically in their feeds as well. You can send a private message to all your subscribers that doesn’t show up on the main page, creating incentive for people to “like” the page.

When Fan pages were first unveiled, many scoffed at the prospect of a corporate presence on Facebook. People soon embraced it as an important social media advertising platform, and you should too!

So I was at Wal-Mart with the lady, and she said we should buy something crazy (tax return). After a single day I decided it wasn’t worth keeping it, returned it, and decided to just say fuck it and buy an Android instead. Here’s why I returned it:

The Wi-Fi Issue:

For a wireless device, it seems to have a real nasty problem with connectivity. You’ll find many frustrated users who’ve ended up returning it because they couldn’t get help from Apple. I called them up and they said it “must be my router”. I tried three different ones and it still was either sluggish or didn’t connect well. iPods connect fine to the routers (neighborhood kids use the wifi) so why not the iPad? One quick fix I found was to flash the iPad, but this only worked so long. Something about Angry Birds or any app being installed kills connectivity. Go figure.

Interface Brick Wall:

While it may have been funny to watch my girlfriend try and get out of the settings menu for the first five minutes of using it, I hate the interface. Are you supposed to hit the home button for every function, or what? So simple, a six year old can’t figure out how to use it!

Okay What Now?

Once we figured out what the hell we were doing, I couldn’t think of a use for it beyond Angry Birds or reading ebooks. As the Kindle Wifi is only running $139, I can’t justify a $600+ purchase to read a book or play some fun games. Maybe in the future there will be more stuff you can do with it out of the box.

Can I Hack it?

Since I’ve been using Windows and Linux run machines for so long, I was pretty frustrated about how locked down Apple products are (yeah, yeah, I know it’s a lifestyle product) and that getting it hacked to do some novel stuff wasn’t simple unless you’re a tethering ninja.

All in all, the iPad wasn’t for me. Maybe once all the kinks are worked out in the next version, I can try it again.

More Info: Xbox Engineering